Friday, July 29, 2011

Fab Find Friday: Dollar Tree Baskets to Mail Organizers

Most days by looking at our house, you can't tell that I LOVE organization. I need it feel happy. When things start getting cluttered, I get grumpy. We have a small rectangle basket that the mail is supposed to go in everyday. It overflows with junk mail, so most of the time our mail ends up in a pile on the bar. Hopefully these lovelies will solve the junk pile problem! They were so easy to make!

I always get into trouble when I go into Dollar Tree. I can never go in that store and just come out with what is on my list. That is what happened with these baskets. I saw them on the shelf and they said "buy us and we'll make you smile!" I already had in mind what they would be used for.

I'd seen lots of mail organization ideas on different blogs, but none of them did it for me. When I saw these baskets I knew what I wanted to do with them. So I got out my scrapbook paper and stencils and got to work!

I typed up and printed out our names along with"Junk Mail" and used my stencil to trace and cut them out in a square shape.

Then I used my good ole Mod Podge to glue the 2 together and poof! I had my labels. If you don't want to make your own labels or don't have the resources to do it, there are a ton of free label templates on the internet that you can just print out and cut out yourself!

P.S. I love Mod Podge so much more than glue. It has a stronger bond, it's thicker, and you have less air bubbles. All great things.

Now I had to figure out a fancy way to adhere these pretty little labels to the baskets. Ooh...what about ribbon?! So I punched holes on each side of my labels.

And strung my ribbon through.

Now it was time to glue it all on the basket!

I didn't worry about having the ribbon ends touch each other on the backside. I knew that these were going to be wall mounted so no one would see. Doing stuff like this saves on your supplies. But only skimp when it wont affect the overall appearance of your project. If skimping lessens the quality of what your making, then don't do it!

Now my baskets are ready for the wall!

I hung them up in our laundry room (which connects to the garage) next to our keys. I'm planning to make this area a little central command post. The wall directly across from it is very bare at the moment. But with some color and creativity, I plan to decorate it up so that we have a nice, little, happy welcome when we come home each day. And it won't hurt to do the laundry in a place that makes ya feel so good! And what makes me feel even better is that this project cost me just a little over $3. I only had to buy the baskets because I had everything else at home!

I've been trying to find just these for months for the exact same reason!! If you had showed me the baskets without saying they were from Dollar Tree, I would've thought they'd be 5$ a pop at least! Maybe my Dollarama (Canada) will get these in stock someday... they seem to have a lot of items in common with Dollar Tree. You did great with them. (New follower :) saw your post at CSI project)